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Whats errors we often make about ancient polytheism? which is what the word “paganism” has traditionally referred to, is to dismiss it as a more primitive stage of religion than monotheism, and therefore as a relic of history. Yet just as monotheism developed in antiquity from its simpler biblical form to the more sophisticated Judaism of the early rabbis, so polytheism evolved, too. The high paganism of Greco-Roman culture and the Roman empire, which reached its acme in the first centuries CE just before being destroyed by Christianity, produced elevated modes of worship, important philosophers, great poets and prose writers. Intellectually, let alone artistically, it was in no way Judaism or Christianity its inferior. My roots of this dismissal, of course, go back to the Bible. “Their idols are silver and gold,” typically says the Psalmist of the gods of the peoples among whom the Israelites lived. “They have mouths but they speak not; eyes they have, but they see not.” As perceptive as the biblical authors were about many things, they themselves were blind to the fact that no thinking polytheist ever confused an idol representing a god with the god it represented. Biblical monotheism understood paganism, whose conception of the world was not necessarily simple-minded, no better than paganism understood biblical monotheism.Secular Styles “modern paganism,” and many elements of modern life in the West seem to be pagan, a repudiation of classic Jewish ethics that goes from the worship of God to the worship of nature?The Christian scorn for paganism, inherited from Judaism, can be found in the word “pagan” itself. It derives from Latin paganus, which originally meant, in pre-Christian times, “rustic” or “villager,” and also had the derogatory sense of “hick” or “yokel.” Paganus in turn is from pagus, a rural district, whence come words like French pays and Spanish país, “country,” Italian paesano, “fellow countryman,” and English “peasant.” Paganus came to mean “non-Christian” or “polytheist” because Christianity made its first strides in the Roman empire as a largely urban religion and spread more slowly to the countryside, where the old gods continued to be worshiped longer. All of this was reinforced among Christians by the word’s pejorative sense.

A variant form of “pagan,” “paynim,” from old French paienime, was once also common in English but has long been archaic. Interestingly, another now-archaic word, “heathen,” which was in the past used more often than “pagan” as a designation for non-Christians or (in biblical times) non-Israelites, has a similar history. It derives from Old English haethen, “heath dweller,” or from an even earlier Germanic word (compare German Heide, meaning both “heathen” and “heath”) referring to someone like a cowherd or shepherd who lived on uncultivated land. Even when most farmers had been Christianized, paganism held on in outlying areas where farmland yielded to pasturage. The heathen was the bumpkin whom the true faith had not yet reached. Tax God , Driver LICENSE God Marriage LICENSE God Fishing LICENSE God so were treated like pagans heathens for a reason . Redemption from LICENSE uncultivated bumpys or Natures Harmonic Heathen. the interpretation that pagan is bad. nope its the alternative or altered nature leaving my first estate and who commercialized the pagan paperwork .

Converging Our Masonic Jewels Is Masonry bad? Depending on a Bad (“patron”) Judaism not only approved of the pursuit of wealth by proper and legal activity, especially when wealth facilitated the study of Torah, but regarded the earning of a livelihood as a divine command. “Apart from the period of wandering in the desert . . . there has been no manna from heaven. This active participation of man in the creation of his own wealth is a sign of man’s spiritual greatness. In this respect he is, as it were, an imitator of God.
Wealth too can be an avenue of worship. That might sound Converging but being aristocratic and timely titled is a patron heritage that despite its legacy from our lap of luxury . I have No Masonic phobias Paganisms are just naturalisms . The created crumbs are worth my time jumping for a carrot or waiting for an arm too tire u decide.